


Nothing good comes from being gone

by magpie_03



Series: Down the mountain range of my left-side brain [8]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Chronic Illness, Depression, Epilepsy, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Sad, Seizures, Suicide Attempt, joshler - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-18 04:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15478155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_03/pseuds/magpie_03
Summary: He's got two lives, two selves he's presenting to the world. "Healthy" Tyler who puts on a mask and says he's okay, he's fine over and over again until his jaw muscles freeze from smiling. And then there's the Tyler he doesn't allow anyone to see.





	Nothing good comes from being gone

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings apply. Read with caution!
> 
> PS: The title is inspired by a song by Flatsound with the same title. It's heartbreaking but also beautiful. You should listen to it.

Tyler's eyes dart over the calendar right across his bed. He doesn't know why he and Josh settled for this specific one other than it's practical. Mind over matter. It's one of the big calendars, those that cover the entire year, slicing it into 12 identical columns with even smaller columns for the day so you can tick them off, all 365 of them. The calendar isn't just ugly, it's boring: unappealing in its blandness. They got it for free from the pharmacy. At the top there's the logo of the pharmaceutical company that produces his anticonvulsant for a price so outrageus it turns being alive into a luxury.

_Inspired by patients. Driven by science._

Tyler rolls his eyes. He's pretty sure no one would be inspired by him since he's not one of those epileptics who run marathons to raise awareness for brain diseases. He's not one of the cute kids you see on TV when someone tries to raise money for charity. He's isn't involved in advocacy work either. He's Tyler. Just Tyler. 

It's one in the afteroon and he just got up. His muscles are aching, his head is screaming. He stumbles forward and makes the first black cross. He hit rock bottom again and now he's got to climb back up.

He's so tired of this, of getting up, feeling like he hasn't slept at all. He's tired of feeling sick, tired of seizing, tired of black crosses again and again and again. He's tired of feeling like he isn't living, just existing at the fringes of life, not knowing how to participate.

  ~~x: simple partial seizure  
~~

His pen scratches over the surface as he struggles to fit it all in. Medical terms are his second language by now. He's got two lives, two selves he's presenting to the world. "Healthy" Tyler who puts on a mask and says he's okay, he's fine over and over again until his jaw muscles freeze from smiling. And then there's the Tyler he doesn't allow anyone to see (except Josh), the Tyler who lies in bed all day, the Tyler who cries all until everything is covered in snot and he gets a headache, the Tyler who needs help with the most basic things, the Tyler who blacks out again and again, the Tyler who's got to get up again and again. He's got two selves, two lives. He isn't just bilingual - he's split in two.

~~impaired consciousness  
~~

There's no room for emotions in this type of language. There's no room for emotions in this body, a body that has no other identity except being ill, no other way to experience the world except through illness. No other way of being other than through a body that's holding on by its fingernails.

~~epigastric aura~~

The space for the day is already full and he's sure there's more to come. He feels off, like the aura is still lingering on. There's always more to come because his epilepsy is constantly changing and right now he's on a downward spiral. It's getting better only to get worse, it's getting worse only to come to a standstill, it's coming to a standstill only to establish a new baseline, and then it begins all over. He's going nowhere - racing there.

He stares at the last three months. If he hadn't written it down he wouldn't know. Sometimes he tricks himself into believing he's getting better by writing down only every second or third seizure. It looks better that way and he'll forget anyway.

~~May: x    x               x~~

~~June: xx     x       x     xx     x     x~~

~~July: x x         x x~~

~~August: x~~

It's August. And the month has only just begun.

He grabs the pan and stabs the paper until it rips, until the day is gone.

...

Tyler has to constantly fight the urge to simply go back to bed. But his doctors keep telling him routine is important, exercise is important, eating healthy is important, self-care is important, staying alive is important. Things he sucks at because he can't seem to get them done, not when fear - he'll never get better - and shame - he'll never get better and everybody knows - paralyze him like this. He looks at the word self-care and finds he can't remember what it means anymore. For his pre-epilepsy self it meant sleeping in and eating junk food every now and then just to mend his sore muscles even though he wasn't supposed to do that because "WHEN YOU'RE AN ATHLETE YOUR BODY IS YOUR INSTRUMENT! AND YOU TAKE CARE OF IT! WOULD YOU SHOVE CHEESEBURGERS INTO A VIOLIN??" (as his coach yelled at him once). Now his muscles become sore all on their own while his keyboard collects dust in a far corner of his apartment.

He still feels off. He doesn't feel right and he doesn't know why. Was it the recent increase in his seizure medication? Was it the seizures on their own? Was it something else, something he couldn't see but feel, a darkness that is slowly making its way out, leaking out of his ears and eyes like black goo? He doesn't know, all he knows is that he made Josh cry during his last series of mood swings and seizures when he banged his head against the wall so hard he needed stitches. He wants to explain it all, how during episodes when he's having a lot of seizures he feels off balance, like he's about to lose his mind, like he's coming apart at the seams. It's when the the electrical imbalance inside his brain becomes palpable. He doesn't feel right in the head, he's being pulled this way and that without having control over the way he feels or behaves and that never stops being terrifying. He's angry at himelf for all the ways in which he behaves. He feels betrayed by his body, this body. He hates the seizure medication, hates the fact that he need it this to survive, needs medications that keep his brain from electrocuting itself and make him sick in the head instead.

Deal with the devil.

He's trying, trying in so many different ways. He's disciplined. He pins his new medication schedule to the fridge so he and Josh can keep an eye on the details. His neurologist decided to double the dosage to get the small seizures back under control and the drug needs to be increased carefully. He takes his medication exactly at the same time every day, 8AM and 6PM, wondering if he's ever going to be able to sleep in again.

He ticks off day after day, swallowing his pills, repeating the same sentence inside his mind. A mantra that keeps him stable, that keeps him going.

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

It's summer and he's forcing himself into the sun so he can get a tan, nevermind the fact that because of the current heatwave you can't really go outside without feeling like your skin is cooking, like you're about to melt. He's pretty sure the temperatures aren't good for his brain. But when you're tanned no one believes you're sick because people equate health with appearance. And it's true, everyone compliments him on his complexion, his looks. He smiles and hides the fact that the skin on his back is peeling.

He even joins Josh and Brendon (Brendon from the hospital, somehow he and Josh stayed in contact) at the swimming pool. He doesn't trust his body enough for him to be able to enjoy a swim but he manages to sit at the shallow end. He dips his legs into the water and they begin to float. No longer a piece of flesh, no longer a vessel, they transcend, they become transparent, translucent. Weightless. He wishes he could say the same thing about his soul.

It's starting to become a new routine. Days go by without any black crosses on the calendar. Tyler's starting to feel normal again, alert, awake. He watches a basketball tournament with his family and cheers for his little brother, finally feeling like the big brother his siblings deserve to have.

After the game he fools around with a basketball, the grin on his face like a thousand watt light bulb.

It feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest.

 He's starting to feel hopeful again, hopeful that _this is it, they finally found the right medication and dosage. My epilepsy isn't refractory, it's just difficult to treat and now that it's treated properly I'm finally going to get better._

How frail it all feels and yet so good, afternoons spent with Josh and Brendon, sitting together, laughing about stupid jokes. How he could finally afford to be carefree, careless without worrying about the consequences.

It's easier to endure this way. The many side effects of his drugs, including acid reflux that makes him cough violently after each meal until there are tears in his eyes. The stomach acid in his mouth. His bloated face. It's all a little lighter to bear, to carry. He feels like he's no longer suffering - he's holding on to everything, despite all. He knows the difference. 

It takes real skill, awareness, and acceptance to find the balance between being vigilant (because you still have to monitor your body for any signs of an oncoming crisis) and enjoying the good times that you do have. You have to fight for it. You have to hold on to the good moments and pull them close because with uncontrolled epilepsy a decline in your health can happen at any moment and when it happens, it happens fast.

Still nothing prepares you for that moment when the tides turn and they're not in your favour. The increase in his anticonvulsant medication gives Tyler a kidney stone - the drug clears through the kidneys and his kidneys evidently had enough. The pain is so intense, so bright and blinding it becomes his entire world. No way in, no way out. He stays awake an entire night, hands on his back, forehead leaned against the wall. Whispering. Breathing. Praying.

Just trying to be.

Simply trying to be.

The next morning he schedules an emergency appointment with his GP. Blood work. Peeing into a plastic cup. Tyler is so used to this he doesn't mind carrying the cup to the counter so it can get checked by the lab. He's way past embarrassment.

Right in the moment when the doctor is done examining him and issues a referral to a nephrologist the seizure comes. Without an aura, without a warning. Tyler's eyes roll back and his body freezes. A deep, guttural moan as if the epilepsy is coming back alive inside him. He falls on the floor, falls on the side that's hurting, the side the doctor couldn't examine without Tyler wincing. Now he's seizing, his body jerking heavily, rising and falling, again and again and again.

The brain doesn't feel pain.

And just like that, like a house of cards your "healthy" life comes crashing down.

Now he's back to counting days, ticking them off. Back to ripping holes into paper.

Back to 1 seizure a month, 2 seizures a month, 2 seizures a week, 4 seizures a week. Back to auras, back to nightmares so vivid and clear the word _horror_ isn't enough to describe it all. Back to seizures at 5AM, back to waking up in the morning and crying your eyes out, just like that. Back to battered muscles, a battered brain. A battered relationship too because the lack of sleep makes him angry, snappy, leashing out when Josh has done nothing wrong.

_Don't want to be getting sad again  
_

There are no literally no words for it. He's losing language. It's getting more and more difficult to decipher written words that are longer than two syllables. He's forgetting words even though he knows what he wants to say, the idea and concept is clear in his mind but he can't grasp it, can't make it real. He's saying things backwards. His neurologist explains this to him by using a model of the human brain. He takes out the temporal lobes and taps his pen against their plastic surface. Tyler can relate. He daydreams about taking out his brain - ripping it out with his bare hands.

But he's trying. He's desperately holding on to his life. He doesn't want to be an illness, he wants to be a human being, a person. He wants to become whole again.

He goes to a concert with Josh and Brendon, a performance by a local band. The music doesn't move him, doesn't do anything. While Brendon and Josh have the time of their life Tyler holds on to the railings, sick with panic because his brain can't process the noise and the lights. In the end he hides in the bathroom, wishing desperately he was back home.

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

He's starting to forget things again.

During a family visit he tells his parents the same story over and over again until his mom puts a hand on his arm and whispers "Honey, we know. You've told us before." He can see his parents exchanging looks.

With the memory problems comes the panic. During a routine trip to the supermarket he gets lost. He can't remember the way, can't remember what he wanted to do in the first place, can't remember where he put his keys and phone. In the end he stumbles back home, ashamed and angry. This is what people with Alzheimer's must feel like. He's 24.

_Don't want to be getting sad again_

Focusing is impossible. Everytime he sits down, ready to write lyrics again he gets distracted and after five minutes he's completely forgotten what he wanted to do in the first place.

Movie nights with Josh are impossible. He's back to pretending he's enjoying this, pretending to laugh about the same jokes even though he can't follow the plot. 20 minutes into the movie and he still hasn't figured out who the main character is. 

Meanwhile, the pills don't stop. His neurologist keeps increasing the medication again and again. Tyler feels like he's measuring his life in pills. Morning meds, evening meds, night meds. His mind and mouth are sour from the drugs.

He becomes wobbly again, his lack of coordination painfully obvious as he runs into tables, chairs, doorframes. He's stumbling like a boxer who got knocked out on the final round.

The world wasn't built for this body. His body wasn't built for this world.

It's starting to feel like drowning on the inside again. He's starting to wish he was hanging by his shoelaces again.

_Don't want to be getting..._

He knows he's supposed to call his neurologist and schedule an emergency appointment. _When you're becoming suicidal you really need to call us, Tyler._ He's supposed to reach out, he can't stay alone with this, he's...

what's the word?

s....

s....

s...

s - u- p - p - o - s - e - d

to do a lot of things but he can't and so he goes back to bed. He's watching the world spin with dazed, unfocused eyes.

He's hibernating in the middle of summer.

Retreat, retreat. retreat.

Sleep is for hiding, again and again and again.

Counting hours instead of days. Begging for time to pass because more of it means less of him.

_Don't want to be_

There are no words for this kind of pain. 

_Don't want to be_

_Don't want to be_

_Don't want to be..._

He doesn't remember locking himself in the apartment while Josh banged against the door from the outside. He remembers the strange, eerie calmness that washes over you before a suicide attempt. He doesn't remember being dragged to the hospital by two police officers who had knocked down the door. He remembers a sharp, pulsing pain as his arms are bent behind his back. He doesn't remember waiting in the ER for a psychiatrist to assess him. He remembers sobbing uncontrollably and helplessly. He doesn't remember the conversation he had with the psychiatrist who was on call that night, doesn't remember the three days he spent on the acute psychiatric ward. He remembers that his mom came to pick him up, how she, as he climbed into the passenger seat, put a hand on this back and told him

"You're being very brave, Tyler. Do you know that?"

...

The following weeks are spent at home. Tyler's convinced Josh broke up with him because he had enough of him and his brain. He's too scared to look at his phone or check his messages for fear of the inevitable. Everything is fear with a body that's worse for wear.

Now matter how old you are, when you go home you become your parent's child again. Some things never change. Except they do. He sits in his bedroom all day, wrapped in perpetual, artificial darkness. The blinds are drawn and he's wearing a hoodie (Josh's hoodie, a fact he'd like to forget but can't) with the hood up. He can't keep the world out so he keeps himself in.

In the end, his parents take control out of his hands - and he lets them because the alternative is going back to the hospital and he doesn't want that. His days get a new, strict rhythm. He gets up at 7AM, together with his siblings who have to go to school and his dad who has to go to work. He forces his body to the breakfast table and listens to his siblings rant about school work, the crinkling of his dad's newspaper, the static on the radio.

He knows he should be a big brother to his siblings, help them with their school work, help them get through school at all. But he can't when he's like this, he doesn't feel like a person when he's like this.

He stares at the four different plastic cups in front of his plate, all filled with a different medication. He'd bitten his tongue quite badly during a seizure a few days ago and there are still pieces of dead flesh hanging from the inside of his cheek.

He feels like a zombie, body hollowed out and empty.

"They kinda look like smarties," his sister remarks as she takes one of the plastic cup and examines the pill inside. In a way it's true. The drugs look harmless enough - a deep yellow, a lighter yellow, white, white. Pretty colors for chemicals that slowly eat your brain and your kidneys.

Tyler prods at his bowl of cornflakes with his spoon. When you're this ill it's not just your world that shrinks - it's your struggles too. Eating meals turns into a wrestling match. Showering is like running a marathon, that point in the race when you've hit the wall, your muscles tremble and you're sure you'll pass out. Leaving the house - impossible.

He can see the sadness in his parent's eyes as he manages to eat a spoon full of cereal and promptly vomits. Now he needs to swallow the pills all over again because throwing up right after medications means your body hasn't absorbed anything. Small pills, big pills, pills that taste like nothing, pills that taste like puke. He can see the helplessness in their eyes and he's starting to cry too. He picks up the pills with shaking fingers and whispers w _hat are you doing to me._

There are days devoted to nausea.

Devoted.

Hours and hours of

puking

puking

puking

pills

sleep

sleep

sleep

Tyler is tossed around like a ping-pong ball.  After a lengthy discussion - Tyler's neurologist thinks it's a psychiatric problem, the psychiatrist says it's a neurological problem, and Tyler's parents think it's a mixture of both -  he's put on a new medication, an antidepressant that doubles as a sedative. Another medication for a body, a brain that's been ill for a long time. Another attempt not to cure or fix him but to hold him together, to hold it all together because your bare hands aren't doing a good enough job.

The actual anti-depressant effect of the medication takes weeks to kick in but it's sedating him straight away. He's sprawled on his parent's couch, unable to act upon the dark thoughts that still linger inside his mind. The pills have him fumble for sleep, a sleep that's different - less colorful. The nightmares are gone now. Now it's a new kind of sleep, a new kind of intimacy, a new kind of vulnerability. Entire days are spent on the couch, with Tyler being not awake enough to react but still conscious enough to sense the presence of people, to hear footsteps, voices. He craves it, this background noise, because silence isn't quiet anymore. It's brutal, it's too much. It opens him up, exposing him to a reality he'd rather forget. A new kind of life. An old kind of life. Hands that stabilize his neck. A straw between his lips. Food, water, sleep. Repeat repeat repeat. His existence is reduced to the bare minimum. The bare bones of life. This isn't living.

This is survival.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm going back to bed now that I've written this


End file.
